Rahima Mahmut gave evidence.

Welcome. We will now hear from Rahima Mahmut, the UK director of the World Uyghur Congress. We have until 2.45 pm for this session. Would the witness introduce herself for the record?

Rahima Mahmut:

I am Rahima Mahmut. I am Uyghur. I have been living in the UK since 2000, and I am a human rights activist. I have not been able to return home for the last 23 years. Since the implementation of the genocidal policy in my country in 2016, I have been heavily involved in leading the campaign in this country. I am the UK director of the World Uyghur Congress and the executive director of Stop Uyghur Genocide. That is all I can tell you about me, but if you want to know more I am happy to continue.

Thank you very much. I call the Minister.

Q Thank you for being here and sharing your thoughts and experiences, which I imagine are very painful. One of the purposes of the Bill is to say that we should have one foreign policy. It does not prevent our central Government from having sanctions regimes, for instance. Do you agree that foreign policy should be reserved for the UK Government, rather than local authorities making up independent foreign policies?

Rahima Mahmut:

All my life, I have been fighting for freedom of speech and the freedom to make decisions. I do believe that foreign policy is not necessarily fair. For example, since 2016 and especially since 2017, mass arrests have started in my country. The UN said that up to 1 million people are in concentration camps but we believe that it could be up to 3 million people. I have lost contact entirely with family members since January 2017. In April, I learned that my sister had died in March—one month earlier—and I was told not to contact anyone in case I put their life in danger. I learned that my brother was in a camp for over two years and released because he was almost dying.

I have been campaigning in Parliament, and it has passed a motion declaring that genocide is happening. The independent UK Uyghur tribunal, led by Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, also found evidence of genocide based on the forced sterilisation, forced abortion, and prevention of future births of Uyghur children. There is also forced labour, family separation, children being taken away, cultural destruction, and so on. We have a huge amount of evidence gathered by the Uyghur tribunal, yet we have not really seen the UK take active policy decisions on trade or anything else.

It really pains me to see this kind of inactivity from the politicians because of the UK’s economic dependency on China and its diplomatic relationship. Our Foreign Secretary visited China only last week, after which I penned two op-eds: one was in The Spectator, in which I said that this is a betrayal of the Uyghurs; the other was in The Guardian. I recommend that you read them if you have time. I laid out the reasons why this is so unfair and why it just does not really align with the human rights that we believe the UK upholds.

In this kind of situation, I do believe that local authorities and other bodies should have those powers. We campaign, for example, about solar panels, an area that is heavily tainted by Uyghur slave labour. We know that local authorities make decisions on buying those products, and we believe that if we can convince the local authorities, they can decide not to buy solar panels tainted by slave labour.

Q I am very sorry to hear what has happened to your sister and brother, and I appreciate your passion. The upcoming procurement legislation will further strengthen our approach to exclude suppliers where there is clear evidence of the involvement of forced labour and other modern slavery practices, such as in Xinjiang. Given that, and given that this Bill will sit in harmony with the Procurement Bill, so there will be the ability to exclude suppliers on modern slavery and labour misconduct grounds, are you more comfortable with the situation with this Bill?

Rahima Mahmut:

No. For example, we are also campaigning against Hikvision cameras, which are made in China. Hikvision is one of the biggest CCTV companies, and its cameras cover internment camps and the entire Uyghur region. I always call this genocide against my people the first high-tech genocide. We are campaigning against Hikvision because it is complicit in this genocide, but we cannot necessarily prove that Hikvision cameras are made using slave labour. If the Government do not recognise this as genocide, then local governments and public bodies cannot make the decision to boycott or to stop such products coming into this country.

There will be the ability to exclude on modern slavery and labour misconduct grounds under the Procurement Bill and in this Bill, but perhaps, in the interest of time, I should allow colleagues to come in.

We have a great deal of sympathy with what you have expressed to us this afternoon. One problem that many people have with the Bill is that although it was billed as a Bill to prevent BDS against Israel, it is not country-specific. It applies to all countries, including Myanmar and China, and will have a direct impact on the solidarity that is capable of being shown to the Uyghur minority. It is ironic, really, that although one of the impressive things we have seen over the last couple of years is the solidarity from the Jewish community in Britain with the Uyghur minority, we have this Bill that some would suggest actually prevents local authorities from expressing that collective, community, material solidarity with people who are oppressed in China. Do you think that is a fair characterisation of your concernsQ ?

Rahima Mahmut:

First, thank you for that question. I thank the Jewish community from the bottom of my heart for the support we have received—Stop Uyghur Genocide received its first fund from the Pears Foundation. As people who have experienced this absolute horror in the past, the Jewish community can relate and understand the pain.

When it comes to the legislation, I am not a lawyer. I only look at whether a piece of legislation will benefit my community. So far, from my own understanding of this Bill, I do not see that it will have any kind of positive outcome. As I have explained, this is because of the power that China has due to the economic dependency that this country and many others have on it, which is why we could not really mobilise Governments to recognise it and take any meaningful action. Therefore, I strongly oppose this Bill. This is not just me; I represent the Uyghur community, which also opposes this Bill. We do not want this Bill to one day prevent our campaign from being successful.

That was very clear, thank you.

I am afraid that this will probably have to be the last question to the witness. I call Chris Stephens.

Q Thank you for your testimony today, Rahima. I have Uyghur constituents, and I have heard a lot about what is going on from them.

I have just got a simple question for you. George Peretz KC observed that the Bill would prohibit public bodies and local authorities from imposing their own bans on, for example, products and services imported from China, based on boycotting unethical production chains that use Uyghur forced labour. Is your opinion the same as that of George Peretz KC? Is there anything else you would like to add before we close?

Rahima Mahmut:

We hear a lot about Uyghur forced labour at the moment, from cotton products to solar panels, and much more. But one thing is very clear: no one can go inside the region to carry out any kind of meaningful due diligence. The Chinese Government always have their own ways of manipulating these processes of examination, such as changing goods made in so-called Xinjiang to say, more broadly, “made in China”.

This is a very uphill battle. We have over 300 organisations united as End Uyghur Forced Labour, but we are not really achieving the goal that we would like to achieve. I believe that the most powerful and important outcome would be for the UK Government to bring in a ban on imports from the region, and to spare some resources to control and sanction China. We know that Russia has been sanctioned, and we know the reasons—you can see the bombardment and the people dying. You can see the visual sights. Although you do not see the scenes, my people are dying in camps in large numbers, and there is no investigation or action. I therefore believe that action should not just be limited to certain Bills—we would like to see accountability overall.

That brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions on this. I would like to thank our witness very warmly on behalf of the Committee.